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Fifteenth Century Archive
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Interpreting Warfare and Knighthood in Late Medieval France: Writers and Their Sources in the Reign of King Charles VI (1380-1422)
Posted on March 10, 2013 | No CommentsRomances provided the basis of a particular kind of view of knighthood and warfare that was very influential on other literature concerning knights and warfare, as much as it was on real life practices and attitudes. -
Elite and government in medieval Leiden
Posted on March 10, 2013 | No CommentsThe development of Leiden's 61ite is traced up to 1420. The siege of the city in that year and the assumption of power by Jan van Beieren resulted in important changes in the urban government: the faction of the Hoeken finally lost ascendancy and the viscount of Leiden ceased to have control over the city's administration. -
Margaret of Denmark, Queen of Scotland
Posted on March 6, 2013 | No CommentsThe marriage of Margaret of Denmark and King James III of Scotland may not have been very happy. But the union had a significant impact on the territorial gains of Scotland. -
Was King Richard III a control freak?
Posted on March 5, 2013 | No CommentsUniversity of Leicester psychologists believe Richard III was not a psychopath – but he may have had control freak tendencies -
Myths and mandrakes
Posted on March 4, 2013 | No CommentsOthers, however, began to wonder whether the possession of roots might not bring them success in other areas as well—wealth, popularity, or the power to control their own and other people's destinies, and took to wearing them as good luck charms. -
Personal’ Rituals: The Office of Ceremonies and Papal Weddings, 1483-1521
Posted on March 3, 2013 | No CommentsThis analysis reveals the increasing involvement of papal ceremonialists in the preparation and supervision of wedding events,5 highlighting the ceremonialists’ own broad definition of their mandate and a pragmatic approach to the boundaries of papal ritual. -
King James III of Scotland
Posted on March 2, 2013 | No CommentsA man of artistic temperament with an elevated sense of self importance, he does not appear to have had any idea how to handle the Scottish nobility. -
Kings and Courtesans: A Study of the Pictorial Representation of French Royal Mistresses
Posted on February 24, 2013 | No CommentsAs France emerged from the Middle Ages, the monarchy began to establish itself as a more stable institution and a curious development took place: the French kings began to install official mistresses at court. With this official status these women became parallel members of the royal family. They lived like queens, with various estates granted to them by the kings. -
Scotland’s Pope: Benedict XIII
Posted on February 24, 2013 | No CommentsScotland’s Pope: Benedict XIII J. H. Baxter (Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the University ofSt. Andrews) Scot’s Magazine (1929) Abstract In the latter half of the month of August,... -
Singing the Self: the Autobiography of the fifteenth-century German singer and composer Johannes von Soest
Posted on February 24, 2013 | No CommentsJohannes von Soest (also referred to as Steinwart or Steinwert) was a German singer, composer and poet. He is the author of a vernacular autobiography in couplets which is not only one of the few examples of late medieval German autobiography but also one of the very few surviving autobiographical documents written by a musician in this period. -
Mary of Guelders, Queen of Scotland
Posted on February 20, 2013 | No CommentsMary was born c. 1434, the daughter of Arnold, Duke of Guelders and Catherine of Cleves, a great aunt of Anne of Cleves, fourth wife of King Henry VIII of England. -
The Cone of Africa . . . Took Shape in Lisbon
Posted on February 19, 2013 | No CommentsThe year that Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic and Isabel and Ferdinand expelled the Jews from Spain, an unheralded event took place. A cartographer in Lisbon, Portugal, drew an amazing map detailing the coasts of Europe, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and western Africa. -
Historical Thought and the Reform Crisis of the Early Sixteenth Century
Posted on February 19, 2013 | No CommentsI shall follow what I feel to be the methodologically sound procedure of examining one case in some detail, while at the same time producing evidence to suggest that elements which are operative in this instance may be operative in others as well. What I should like to focus attention upon are certain ideas of history which were current in the early sixteenth century.  -
Syphilis, Misogyny, and Witchcraft in 16th-Century Europe
Posted on February 19, 2013 | No CommentsSyphilis, Misogyny, and Witchcraft in 16th-Century Europe Eric B. Ross Current Anthropology, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Apr., 1995), pp. 333-337 Abstract While debate continues over the geographical origin of syphilis... -
The Poisoned Image of the Borgias: A Look at the Public Image of Pope Alexander VI and His Children
Posted on February 18, 2013 | No CommentsUpon Rodrigo Borgia’s ascension to the papacy in 1492 and assumption of the name Alexander VI, the masses of Rome who watched his parade and celebration with hopeful eyes welcomed him eagerly, despite his wild ways and indiscretions as a cardinal. -
King James II of Scotland: A Reign of Murder and Mayhem
Posted on February 13, 2013 | No CommentsHistory repeats itself. This aphorism is especially true for the Scottish monarchy. There was a period during Scottish history where Kings would die, leaving a child as heir to be ruled by a regency council. This happened over and over and it happened to King James II. -
Sir John Fortescue and the French Polemical Treatises of the Hundred Years War
Posted on February 10, 2013 | No CommentsInevitably Fortescue had to adopt new arguments for the defence of Henry VI. To this end he asserted that the Lancastrians now had a just title through divine and ecclesiastical approbation, popular consent and prescription, but the core of his case was a direct response to the Yorkist claim that they had a superior hereditary title to the throne. -
Solem a Tergo Reliquit: The Troublesome Battle of Bosworth Field
Posted on February 10, 2013 | No CommentsThe first major point upon which we disagree concerns the nature of existing evidence about the Battle. Richardson points to a number of sources, but the central problem here is that, with one ex- ception, they are not contemporary with the Battle itself. -
The Princess and the Gene Pool: The Plantagenet rebel who held the secret to Richard III’s DNA
Posted on February 9, 2013 | No CommentsRichard III is perhaps the most controversial figure in British history and historians will long be discussing what new light the finds cast on his story. But the long-forgotten Anne was herself a creature of scandal – a woman who openly took a lover; divorced her husband; and kept his family lands anyway. -
The Duchess and the Necromancers
Posted on February 1, 2013 | No CommentsThe downfall of Eleanor Cobham was a shocking event in the 15th century, and it's disturbing today. -
Did Joan of Arc have to be a woman? Contemporary and later perspectives on her gender
Posted on January 29, 2013 | No CommentsThe only trustworthy drawing of Joan of Arc made during her lifetime has often been reproduced. Yet, to those of us who study the fifteenth-century French military saint, this portrait is actually a disappointment. -
What the Paston Letters Tell about Land Owning in the 15th Century England
Posted on January 28, 2013 | No CommentsHow do the terms on land and manors which appear in the Paston Letters reflect his observation? I pick up several terms relating to the land owning system in the England of Middle Ages and examine their distribution in the letters; i.e. the terms ‘villein, serf, demesne, bond, rent, and tenant.’ -
En/gendering representations of childbirth in fifteenth-century Franco-Flemish devotional manuscripts
Posted on January 27, 2013 | No CommentsLate-medieval representationsof the births of holy and heroic children invariably show a domestic interior with the new mother lying in bed attended by female assistants.These images thus appearto show a `genderedspace' in which women cared for each other and from which men were marginalized. -
Bawdy badges and the Black Death : late medieval apotropaic devices against the spread of the plague
Posted on January 27, 2013 | No CommentsOwing to the fact that historians generally view the late medieval period as an "age of faith," the existence ofthese remarkable objects raises some fundamental questions about the exact socio-religious nature ofmedieval culture. The primary questions, however, that need answering are: when, where, and for whom were the badges produced, and perhaps most importantly, why. -
How useful is Blind Hary’s ‘The Wallace’ as a source for the study of chivalry in late medieval Scotland?
Posted on January 26, 2013 | No CommentsWhat scholars consider to have constituted a chivalric attitude needs to be considered at this point. To live the chivalrous life was to seek to imitate the great deeds of others, which could be learned from the extensive literature that dealt with the idea of knighthood. In chivalric literature, the knight was expected to have a strong sense of personal honour and had to be willing to defend it against affronts